The present invention relates to apparatus for transferring rod-shaped articles, such as cigarettes or filter rod sections, from a first station at which the articles arrive by moving axially to a second station which the articles leave by moving sideways, or vice versa. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in transfer apparatus of the type wherein articles leave the first station at a first speed and move away from the second station at a different second speed. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in transfer apparatus of the type wherein a rotary carrier supports several crank arms each of which carries or is provided with a receiving means for one or more rod-shaped articles. The crank arms are equidistant from the axis of rotation of the carrier and their movements are controlled by transmission means to ensure that the crank arms are moved relative to the carrier while the latter rotates as well as that the orientation of the receiving means remains unchanged during transfer of articles from one of the stations to the other station.
Transfer apparatus of the above outlined character are often installed between a maker (e.g., a cigarette making machine) and a processing machine (e.g., a filter tipping machine which assembles plain cigarettes of double unit length with filter rod sections of double unit length to form filter cigarettes of double unit length). As a rule, cigarettes leave a maker by advancing lengthwise (i.e., axially), and successive cigarettes or groups of cigarettes enter the filter tipping machine by moving sideways. A suitable maker is known as GARANT and is produced by the assignee of the present application. Another maker is known as SE 80 (also produced by the assignee of the present application), and a filter tipping machine which can cooperate with either of the aforementioned makers is known as MAX S (produced and sold by the assignee of the present application). Certain heretofore known transfer apparatus which are utilized to transport plain cigarettes from a maker to a processing machine are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,303,926 granted Feb. 14, 1967 to Ernest E. Pohl, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,011 granted Mar. 2, 1971 to Jesse R. Pinkham, in German Utility Model No. 1,972,850 in U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,947 granted Oct. 4, 1977 to Peter Schumacher et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,513 granted July 21, 1970 to Gomann et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 3,952,865 granted Apr. 27, 1976 to Rudszinat, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,244,250 granted Jan. 13, 1981 to Ridszinat, and in commonly owned copending patent application Ser. No. 271,834 filed June 9, 1981 by Schumacher. FIGS. 1 to 3 of the copending application Ser. No. 271,834 are identical with FIGS. 1 to 3 of the present case.
A drawback of many presently known transfer apparatus is that they employ rather complex planetary transmissions which advance the receiving means for rod-shaped articles along elliptical or epicycloidal paths. Additional planetaries are utilized to ensure that the orientation of each receiving means remains unchanged. The number of mating gears is very large and this contributes to the cost and bulk of conventional apparatus. Furthermore, the presently known apparatus cannot ensure the transport of receiving means along an optimum path, namely, along a path which is most likely to reduce the magnitude of forces opposing a change in the direction of transport of articles from axial movement to sidewise movement or vice versa. In this connection, the proposal in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,947 to Schumacher et al. constitutes a reasonably satisfactory solution because the receiving means are transported along an elliptical (rather than epicycloidal) path. Consequently, the magnitude of forces acting upon the articles is less than the magnitude of forces to which the articles are subjected during travel along epicycloidal paths. As a rule, the speed at which the articles advance during transfer onto a removing conveyor (e.g., a rotary drum-shaped conveyor having axially parallel peripheral flutes for rod-shaped articles) is much lower than the speed at which the articles travel lengthwise at the discharge end of the maker. Therefore, and if the transfer apparatus is designed in accordance with the teaching in the patent to Schumacher et al., the path for the articles must be a relatively flat elliptical path which, in turn, means that the axial speed of successive articles must be reduced quite considerably while the articles travel along a portion of the elliptical path which exhibits a very pronounced curvature, i.e., in the region of the one or the other focus of the ellipse. This can entail losses in tobacco shreds at the leading ends of rod-shaped articles (if such articles are cigarettes) during the last stage of transport to the receiving station where the articles begin to move sideways.